OPENbike

One of the reasons I want to move to Copenhagen (eventually) is their reliance upon bikes. The idea of having a city that really supports the use of bikes in day-to-day life is something that I can really get behind. Recently, the Copenhagen Bike-Share program had a design competition for what’s basically a rent a bike program. Simply swipe an RFID tagged card or NFC enabled mobile phone next to the bike and you can rent it by the hour.

The winning design was by Erik Nohlin of LOTS Design, a guy who seems to have quite a knack for designing bikes. To me this bike looks like a lot of fun. I love the built-in basket, that way you’d never have to worry about not having a place to store things when you ran errands. The bike dispensaries as well can be placed anywhere in the city, giving people more options to use the bikes wherever they may be.

I find these kind of grand ideas really inspiring. The idea of giving back to the community is such a powerful idea to me. I think that if we gave back to our communities more there could be a lot of really great change happening. Unfortunately people usually only do it for their own ego or vanity.

Bobby

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WRITTEN BY

Bobby Solomon

The founder and Editor-In-Chief of The Fox Is Black. He currently lives in Los Angeles where he works as a creative director pertaining to websites, apps, and other beautiful things. Eat, drink, design.

It’s cute, but if look at it more thoroughly, you’ll realize it’s actually quite badly designed:
the disc wheels make it very sensitive to lateral wind, and the front rack is built-in to the frame, making it difficult to handle when you have to take a corner…

I spent my last summer in Copenhagen, and really, it is such a great city, full of art and design. There are several bikes you can lend for free, which is great for tourists…
It was amazing how many (nearly 40% !!!) people are going by bike to work!

The disc wheels are used on the public bikes they have today in Copenhagen for adventising and I’ve never had problems riding around town on them, even on windy days. And I’m sure the design won’t be anywhere near the picture you’re linking to. That would be a huge step away from the designs used for these bikes through time.

I really do like the design of this bike more than the ones Copenhagen can present now, though they do their job of carrying people around town excellent. Sure would be interesting to see if they’ll turn up on the streets of Copenhagen some day.

I am all for this, even if it ends up being the ugliest bike in the world. There’s a stigma in most of the country that can be almost hostile to cyclists, like it’s a hipster fad or somehow un-American because we don’t drive cars. So anything at all that promotes bikes as a valid form of transport is a huge deal and makes it safer for everyone.

Go bikes!

Morres Rubric January 27, 2010 at 2:54 PM

I live in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. But I grew up in Middelburg, a small place near the beach. Everyone I know here (Rotterdam) and in my hometown bikes too work, too school, beach, train stations etc etc.

Hey Bobby- Great post. My husband and I live in Seoul and we ride our Strida (folding bikes) everywhere. What do you think of some of my husband’s bike designs at http://speedstudiodesign.com? He would so love to design bikes for a living.

dude, ya that bikes does look killer. The disc wheels could be an issue, in the wind but they are soo small that’s it’s probably not an issue. They do look killer on that bike. They main draw back on them really is that they are basicity impossible to lock up, but if it’s a bike share bike that probably not your biggest concern. I do think it would be very possible to get a production bike that looks, pretty much exactly like that. All the parts are standard production stuff except the frame, which for a project like this will certaintly make a new mold for.